Giant pandas may be better at adapting to environmental stress than scientists thought.

Sheng-Guo Fang of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China looked at genes that evolve in response to environmental pressures in the animal’s immune system and found that the markers had greater genetic diversity compared to similar genes in other endangered species.

The results, which appear October 22 in BMC Evolutionary Biology, could help scientists select the giant panda populations that would lead to the most successful captive breeding programs. The findings could also help conservationists maintain genetic diversity of giant pandas in the wild.